4 Blood Pact (36 page)

Dropping to her knees, Vicki upended her purse, searching for her knife.

 

Mike Celluci was a large man in excellent physical condition, speed and strength enhanced by the certain knowledge that if he lost, he died.

Fortunately for him, Henry Fitzroy had been not only weakened by blood loss but also exhausted and injured by the Hunger’s fight to get free.

Which only delayed the inevitable.

Bleeding from half a dozen small wounds, breath burning in his throat, joints popping as Fitzroy’s teeth slowly descended in spite of everything, Celluci knew with cold certainty that he was losing. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

 

Blood trickling down into her hand, Vicki dove across the room, buried her fingers in Henry’s hair and yanked his head up.

Celluci felt lips peel back against his skin and the lightest kiss of pain. Then the heated contact jerked away and teeth sheared the air in the hollow between jaw and neck.

 

Vicki straddled both men and yanked again, harder.

Howling, Henry reared back onto his knees.

Without the grip on his hair she would have lost her balance, but she managed to bring her arm around, blood soaking her cuff and dripping to the floor, and shove the wound against his face.

She cried out as his teeth cut deeper into flesh and the fingers of his good hand clutched almost to the bone. Then she cried out again as he began to suck, mouth working desperately at her wrist.

Vaguely aware of Celluci scrambling clear, she half slid down Henry’s body until she knelt behind him, free hand moving from his hair to his shoulder. Eyes closed, she could feel the blood leave her body for his, feel his urgency catch her up and sweep her along, feel herself begin to be lost in his Hunger. He’d been a passive recipient the last time she’d forced her blood on him. While his need might be no greater now, it was far from passive.

This had a reality that burned, that consumed the memories of all the other times Henry had fed.

Her eyes snapped open as, snarling with frustration, he thrust her wrist aside and whirled to face her. She rocked back. He followed, lips and teeth stained crimson, eyes compelling her to offer her throat, to submit.

She felt her chin begin to rise and forced it back down. “Fuck that!” The hoarse whisper traveled just far enough. “You feed where
I
allow.” She brought her left hand up between them, trailing scarlet streamers in the air.

 

It wasn’t enough. The blood came too slowly.

He batted the wound aside, laid his teeth against the soft flesh of the throat, and breathed in the rich scent of life.

Life. . .

He knew this life.

Then the Hunger roared forward, out of control, and his teeth pierced skin.

A blow struck him hard in the side. He lost his hold, twisted as he fell and landed on his back, staring up at a dark-haired male who dared to take him from his prey.

Another blow. He grabbed at the leg and heaved it away, surging back onto his knees as part of the same motion.

 

Vicki winced as Celluci hit the wall but kept her eyes locked on Henry. Just for a second, she’d felt the Hunger falter. She
could
reach him. She
had
to reach him. It was the only chance for all three of them.

Right hand clamped tourniquet tight above the wound—from the pain involved she suspected his teeth had torn a hole significantly larger than her initial incision—she again offered her left.

He started to dive at her, checked, and slowly raised his eyes up from the welling blood to her face.

 

The Hunger bucked and writhed, but he held it tight, pulling strength from the blood he’d already taken. Pulling strength from her blood.

“Henry?”

Henry. Yes. A name to leash the Hunger with. He forced his lips to form a name to help recage it.

“Vicki.”

 

She frowned as he swayed, and shuffled toward him, still on her knees. “Henry, you’ve got to keep feeding. You haven’t taken nearly as much as you need. Besides. . .” She glanced down at her wrist and looked quickly away again. “Besides,” she repeated, “we’re just wasting it on the floor.”

Henry moaned and crumpled.

Vicki caught him, smearing his back with blood. Holding him awkwardly, she dragged her legs out from under, and gathered him onto her lap.

“No . . .” He pushed her wrist away as she laid it against his mouth. The brief taste of her nearly catapulted the Hunger to freedom. The bloodscent alone tore at hastily erected barricades. “I don’t trust . . . myself.”

She laid her wrist against his mouth again, blood dribbling down over lips clamped shut and staining his cheeks. That he was too weak to stop her merely proved her point. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Henry, stop being a martyr.
I
trust you.”

She felt him hesitate, then she felt his lips part. The torn flesh wrapped barbed lines of pain around her arm as he pressed against her and began to suckle. Muscles tensed, but she managed not to pull away and slowly the familiar rhythm pushed the pain to one side, her body responding with something very like post-coital lassitude. Resting her cheek against the top of Henry’s head, she sighed.

“Isn’t that nice,” Celluci grunted, glaring down at the tableau and wiping at the blood on his face. “Love conquers all.” Sucking his breath through his teeth, he squatted beside them and peered into what he could see of Vicki’s face. “Are you okay?”

Caught in the incessant pull of Henry’s need, she didn’t bother to raise her head, wouldn’t have even bothered to answer except that the concern in his voice demanded a response. “I’m fine.” And then, because she belatedly realized Celluci deserved more than that, added, “I
think
I’m fine.”

“Great.” He shifted position. Somehow, this was more intimate than watching them make love. He barely resisted the urge to grab Henry and violently stuff him back into the isolation box. “How do you know when he’s had enough?”

“He’ll know. He’ll stop.”

“Yeah? What if he needs more than you can spare?”

Vicki sighed again, but this time the exhalation had an entirely different sound. “He won’t
take
more than I can spare.”

Celluci reached up for the open lip of the box and hauled himself to his feet. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t put a lot of faith in that. A few minutes ago he was ready to kill both of us.”

“That was then . . .”

“And this is now? Very deep, Vicki. Very deep bullshit. He stops in fifteen seconds or I’m yanking him off the tit.”

“There’ll be no need, Detective.” The statement, although barely audible, left no room for argument. Henry, having pulled away just enough for speech, molded his mouth back over the wound, pressing the edges of the torn flesh together in order for the coagulant in his saliva to work. He could feel Vicki’s life wrapped around his own and, while the last thing he wanted right at this moment was to break free of it, continuing to feed would only endanger them both. She would die from loss of blood and he would die from loss of her. He had taken all he was going to.

This was the second time she had saved him. The first time, she hadn’t known the risks and, defeated by the demon, the Hunger had lain in darkness with him beyond the need for control. This time, she knew what she was offering and offered in spite of the Hunger raging free.
I wanted to hear her say I love you. I just heard it.

And what had he given in return?

“I’m sorry, Vicki.” He rested his head against her breast, conserving the little strength he’d regained. “I can stop most of the bleeding, but I can’t repair the damage. You’re going to need a dressing of some kind.”

Vicki glanced down at her wrist and her stomach twisted. “Jesus H. Christ.” She swallowed bile. “It looks like it should hurt a lot more than it does.” Then suddenly, it did. “Oh, damn . . .”

Celluci grabbed Henry’s shirt out of the box and dropped to his knees. “I think Jesus H. Christ about sums it up. Fuck, Fitzroy, you’re a god-damned animal!”

Henry met the detective’s stormy glare with a calm gaze of his own. “Not when I can help it,” he said quietly.

“Yeah. Well.” Celluci looked away first, burying his confusion—
He almost kills both of us. He chews a big fucking hole in Vicki. And I feel sorry for
him?—in the wrapping of Vicki’s arm. “You’re lucky,” he grunted as he began to bind Henry’s shirt around the wound. “It’s messy, but I don’t think there’s any tendon damage. Move your fingers.”

“It hurts.”

“Move them anyway.”

Muttering profanities under her breath, Vicki did as instructed, all three of them anxiously watching the digits perform.

“What did I tell you.” Relief made Celluci’s own fingers tremble as he tied off the thick bandage and held a sleeve up in each hand. “We’ll use these as a sling, to immobilize it, but you’re going to Emergency as soon as we get out of here.” Vicki bowed her head as he knotted the cuffs at the back of her neck and he rested his cheek for a moment against her hair, much as she’d done earlier with Henry—who still reclined against the support of her good arm. “I thought . . .” He’d thought she was going to die when he’d kicked the teeth away from her throat. He’d thought she was suicidal when she’d presented herself again. And when it had actually worked, he’d thought. . . he’d thought. . . He didn’t know what he thought anymore. “I thought it was all over,” he finished lamely and sat back on his heels.
And if she asks me what I meant by
all
, I don’t know what to tell her.

Then his eyes widened, and he snickered.

Henry looked startled and pulled himself up into a shaky but nearly erect sitting position.

Vicki’s brows snapped down. “What the hell are you laughing at?” she demanded.

Celluci waved a hand at the two of them and snickered again. “Just for a minute there I was reminded of Michelangelo’s Pietà. You know, the statue of the Madonna holding the body of Christ across her lap?”

“And you think me an inappropriate Christ?” Henry asked.

Celluci took a good long look at the other man—at the bruising, at the horror that still lurked around hazel eyes, at the mixture of physical youth and spiritual age, at the nearly visible sense of self now firmly back in place—and shook his head. “Actually,” he said, “as Christs go, I’ve seen worse. But the Madonna . . .” The snicker returned at Vicki’s indignant stare. “But the Madonna has definitely been miscast.”

Vicki’s lips twitched. “You rotten bastard,” she began. Then she lost it and howled with laughter.

Which pushed Celluci over the edge.

Henry hesitated, nerves scraped raw and unsure if he should be finding insult when Vicki didn’t or blasphemy where none was intended—although honesty forced him to admit that Celluci had a valid point. Unable to withstand the purge of emotion, he joined in.

If some of the laughter had a slightly hysterical tone, they all agreed to ignore it.

 

“Hey, Fergusson! What are you doing back here, man?”

“Forgot something.” Detective Fergusson picked a long narrow paper bag up off his desk and pulled a bottle of bubble bath shaped like a ninja turtle out far enough for the other man to identify it. “My daughter sent me back for it. Informed me on her way to bed that broken promises make blisters.”

“How old is she now, four? Five?”

“Five.”

Detective Brunswick shook his head. “Five years old and she’s already got you asking how high on the way up. Man, when she becomes a teenager, she’s going to run you ragged.”

Fergusson snorted, cramming bag and bottle into his coat pocket. “By that time maybe her mother’ll be slowing down.” He leaned over and squinted at the piece of pink message paper topping a stack of reports like a square of icing. “What the hell’s this?”

“Just some drunk calling you to confess.”

“Confess to what?”

“The sinking of the Lusitania? The shooting of JFK? Repatriating the constitution? I don’t know. She didn’t want to confess to me.”

“Geez, why do
I
always get them?”

Brunswick grinned and snapped his gun. “Because you’re such a sweetie.”

“Fuck you, too,” Fergusson muttered absently, reading the actual message. “Director of Life Sciences? . . .”

“She seemed to think I should know who she was. In fact, she told me that
everyone
knew who she was.” He watched the other man’s face for a moment and his grin faded. “You don’t think there’s actually anything in this, do you?”

“I don’t know.” He crumpled the paper and stuffed it in the pocket with his daughter’s bubble bath, his expression resembling that of a hound worrying at a bone. “Maybe.” Then he shrugged and sighed. “Maybe not.”